American Muslims For Palestine Announces Outdoor Advertising Campaign

The American Muslims for Palestine, part of the Hamas support infrastructure in the U.S., has announced the launch of a new nationwide outdoor advertising campaign, calling for an end to Israeli “apartheid” and to “unconditional American aid for Israel.” According to the AMP announcement:

“The American Muslims for Palestine, a national grassroots organization educating the public about Palestine and its rich cultural and historical heritage, today announced the launch on March 25 of its new nationwide outdoor advertising campaign, calling for an end to Israeli apartheid and to unconditional American aid for Israel. The ads, which will appear at 25 stations on the New York City Transit Authority’s Metro North line, will run for four weeks before moving to another metropolitan area elsewhere in the nation. ‘We timed the release of our ads with President Obama’s visit to the Middle East to underscore his administration’s failure to address the true cause of conflict: Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and its racist apartheid policies, which subject Palestinians on a daily basis to humiliation, deprivation and a loss of their basic rights, including the freedom of movement,’ said Dr. Hatem Bazian, AMP chairman. While Israel denies its policies constitute apartheid, one who knows the colonial, racist policies best, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, recognizes Israel as an apartheid state. AMP’s ad quotes Tutu asserting, ‘I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.’”

Steven Emerson, the head of the Investigative Project, has published a report on the recent American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)’s conference titled “American Muslims For Palestine’s Web of Hamas Support.” The report begins:

Muslims convicted in America of supporting terrorist groups are heroes and the victims of injustice, a national convention of Palestinian activists was told. In addition, speakers said the fight for a Palestinian state will center on American college campuses.. American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)’s conference on Palestinian activism in America attracted more than 2,000 people Thanksgiving weekend in Chicago. Last year’s AMP’s conference revealed the organization’s goal to delegitimize the State of Israel in America. This year’s conference reinforced that message, while taking it a step further. At the opening ceremony, Jamal Said, an imam at the Mosque Foundation in Chicago (Bridgeview Mosque) hailed “the activists and freedom fighters who gave up their personal ambitions and their own lives so our cause may live.” Said was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas financing trial. The U.S. Treasury froze HLF assets in 2001 after concluding its money went to Hamas.

An online biography provides the following details about AMP Chairman Dr. Hatem Bazian:

Hatem Bazian is the current president of the American Muslims for Palestine. Dr. Bazian received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in near eastern studies and ethnic studies and a master’s degree in international relations from San Francisco State University. Currently, Dr. Bazian is a senior lecturer in the Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies Departments at UC-Berkeley. In addition, Dr. Bazian is an adjunct professor at: UC-Berkeley Law School at Boalt Hall, religious studies at Saint Mary’s College of California and UC-Davis. Dr. Bazian co-hosted “Islam Today”, a weekly radio magazine show covering Islam and its diverse people around the world. Since 9/11, he has appeared on many TV and radio interviews and was also a translation consultant for the San Francisco Chronicle on a number of stories relating to Islam, Muslims and global politics.

Video from an April 2004 antiwar-rally shows Hatem Bazian calling for an “Intifada” in the US:

“Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Well, we’ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don’t have an intifada in this country? Because it seem[s]to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watchingCNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream… giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we’re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s]fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every— They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!”

More video from the same conference show Bazian talking about the “Arabs who are coming to help” in Iraq. Dr. Bazian later claimed that his remarks on a US Intifada were misunderstood.

One of the other board members of the AMP identified by the website is Salah Sarsour, also a board member of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee as well as the registered agent for the Wisconsin chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood closely tied to the Egyptian organization. The Sarsour family in Milwaukee is known to have many ties to the Hamas infrastructure in the US. A previous post discussed a a “Gaza Solidarity Day” jointly organized by the MAS, the far-left A.N.S.W.E.R coalition, and the AMP.

A post from November 20912 discussed an AMP statement that condemned Israeli action in Gaza, retaliation for barrages of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, accusing Israeli leaders of “using Palestinian blood for election purposes.”